The small, white-haired woman leading the discussion hesitated. She coughed and bit her lip but managed to read the information on the paper clutched in her shaking hand. She ...

We were at the third gas station before we knew we were screwed . "No gas-no power!" a red-faced woman with a thick Newfoundland accent shouted as we pulled the car up to the pumps. Her ...

By all accounts, Gay Pride Week in Toronto was different this year. Normally, the festivities draw thousands of tourists to the capital of Ontario and the annual parade?that took place on Sunday June 29?can attract ...

We were on our honeymoon when Steve suggested I take a dive. SCUBA diving's great, he explained. "The water, the fish-you'll love it!" I wasn't so sure. In all my years of ...

Readings: Jeremiah 31:31-34 Hebrews 5:7-9 John 12:20-33 I live in an ugly building. It's a brown and teal low-rise that winds around a parking lot like a drunken staircase flipped on its side. Not surprisingly, the building was constructed ...

The Bible's full of angry people. Noah's mad at his sons, Moses is mad at the Hebrews, and Mrs. Job, after a day of awful luck, tells her husband to "curse God ...

Type Ngawang Sangdrol's name into any Internet search engine and prepare to be bombarded. A quick Google hunt reveals over 2800 web pages carrying her name?with good reason. Ngawang Sangdrol, a Tibetan Buddhist nun and ...

Two weeks before our wedding, Steve and I bought life insurance. Our insurance agent was impressed. He claimed that most young couples weren't that responsible. I agreed and stated, "They should ...

When I first learned that a possible Hebrew-to-English translation of Genesis 1:28's command for humans to ‘subdue the earth' is, literally, ‘rape the earth,' I cheered. At the ...

I had the good end of the emergency. A friend's husband needed surgery and her dog needed a sitter. I promptly offered my services. Quincy, a mellow Lab/Beagle mix, is a good dog—a 30-pound sausage ...

Sister Kay is slothful. She's a nun and professor and frantically busy. So, when she announced to my Monday night class that she is lazy, I was shocked. Spiritually lazy, she clarified. Some days, she ...

Every time I attend a burial, the weather's not good. Rain, cold, mud; the universe seems to provide a climate in tune with the mood of those gathered around the grave. The rain returned this week ...

Winter in Ontario and I couldn't touch my toes. I was plopped on the kitchen floor, legs spread in a 'V' and hands stretched towards my feet. ...

We each have a breaking point. I reached mine one recent Sunday morning when, just before noon, I realized that I'd been awake for four hours and doing homework for four hours. I was reading ...

Garry Wills was shocked. After the publication of his best-selling book Papal Sin , which documents recent papal shortcomings, Wills not only received the expected letters from angry Catholics demanding he leave the Church, but ...

The lake was warm. I dropped into the water and pushed off from the dock. I swam into the sunshine, floated, and waited for Steve. He swam near and pointed down. He motioned to my ...

Once upon a time, I owned one bowl and one spoon. I carried them from meal to meal?eating, washing, drying - and allotted them their own shelf in my otherwise empty cupboard. It was a ...

Toronto stinks. Or at least it has since June 26, when the 6800 City of Toronto Outside Workers went on strike . This means that, until union and employer agree on a new contract, garbage ...

Summer's here and weddings abound. While there's nothing wrong with love, there's plenty amiss with weddings. It's a pressure cooker. Bride and groom are attacked with advice and guided towards pricey options. Money vanishes. Fights ...

In my budding feminist years, Natural Family Planning seemed as useful as tossing a grenade into a dance hall and hoping no one would get hit. It was birth control at its most non-existent: a ...